Ron Berger’s famous ‘Austin’s Butterfly’ is a great lesson about how redrafting and feedback can help a child create a more accurate ‘scientific’ drawing of a butterfly. In the context of the task picture six is clearly the ‘best’ depiction of the butterfly. If one removes the context and no longer looks for accuracy … More The Problem With Austin’s Butterfly
In these days of very little time or space on a timetable it is still heartening to know that some schools are trying to make a space where children can be taught in a way that celebrates education for its own sake. Paradoxically this approach might have benefits beyond education, as Stefan Collini puts it: … More History of Thought
I think the three ‘Rs’ of Reading wRiting and aRithmetic should be expanded to the four Rs and include Rhetoric or oRacy, in other words: talk should be an essential core component of a good education. Schools should do their utmost to ensure children read well, write well, do their sums well and talk well. … More Classroom Talk, Some Thoughts on the EEF Report…
Here are the slides in PDF format from my talk at the Telegraph Festival of Education at Wellington College on 22nd June 2017: You Can’t Teach The Best That Has Been Thought and Said
Here are the slides in PDF format from my talk at ResearchEd Rugby on July 1st 2017: The Conversational Classroom #rEDRugby
Trivium 21c 